Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-04-26
DAVIS-BEAUREGARD.
The President of the Late Caufederacy
Replies in no Complimentary Terms
to General Beauregard.
How a Victory was Well Nigh Won and
How it was Forfeited-History and
Beauregard Differ.


Davis has replied to the communication
of General Beauregard printed Sunday,
on the remarks of the former delivered at
the unwilling of the statue of Albert
Sydney Johnston, ct Metarie cemetery,
in this county, April 6. The president of the
late confederacy says: "My remarks were
unprecedented, and under the circum-
stances it would have been very difficult,
if not impossible. to make q report. They
seem, however, to have been sufficiently
clear to be understood by the writer of
the communication, who undertakes to
reduce a quotation to plain language, and
in g quibbling explanation of his plain
language shows that he knew the true
meaning of my remarks. If he
did not | will aid his understanding by
specially stating that in my opinion the
ONLY mistake of General Johnston IN rela-
ton to the battle of Shiloh was in not
personally making the order of march
from Corinth towards Pittsburg landing,
for which his larger experience in the
movement of troops peculiarly quail
fed him, instead of entrusting that duty
to General Besuregard, his sec
ond IN command, and who had
seen comparatively little service
with troops in the field. If in this way,
as appears by contemporaneous state
ments, day was needlessly spent on the
march, it was mistake with serious conse-
quences. He follows with bold assertion
that was mistaken in supposiBg that tel
egraphic dispatch had been lost In which
General Johnston explained to me his
plan of battle. To prove my mistake by
the emphatic announcement that it
is not lost, one might reasonably
expect after such declaration that the
dispatch described by me would be pro-
duced, but instead thereof there is given
q dispatch reciting the order of march
from COrinth and the assignment to posi-
tions on the field, and this is offered as
the telegram now occupying our atten-
ton, a poor fulf1llment of the hope 'sug
gested by the round assertion that the
dispatch referred to by me had not been
lost. In regard to the lost dis
patch, l stated nothing new in
my remarks on the 9th inst. Both
dispatches were lost, but the one pub
lished was supplied from the original in
the possession of w. P. Johnston. 1t
gave the order of march and the general
disposition of the battle. The other, as
stated, was in cipher agreed upon be-
tween Gen. Johnston and myself, and
only used on special occasions.
The original for obvious reasons
was not therefore to be
found in his letter book.
l shall not notice in detail the self lauda-
ton of the long communication under
review, but m rely say if General Beaure-
gard was the author of the plan of battle,
if he was present with the troops, if he
had not been driven from point to point,
and if General Beauregard through the
whole day before, as after the death of
Johnston directed and, after the fall of his
chief actively pressed the attack
till the right and center of the
enemy began to give way in
confusion after General Beauregard had
assumed command, and if the order to
retire was not given until after the con-
centrated onslaught that had been made,
but, as he states, was desultOrY of spirit
and order, and if it was not until just be-
fore sunset that he ordered cessation Of
hostilities-then' many eye witnesses Of
good repute have greatly missed an i'm
pOrtant fact in regard to the battle
of Shiloh, and especially as to
how victory was well nigh
won and bow it was forfeited.
Assertion will not refute that mass of
l&eighty evidence which has been ad-
rduced. nave not disposition TO enter
into this controversy and did not men
ton General Beauregard either by name
or official designation in my re-
marks Oh the 9Th inst. he under
took to make plain as a reference to
himself what might have been generally
supposed to belong to some staff officer,
but he knew the righttul owner and he
claimed his own and proved that it could
not refer to anything which happened on
the field of Shiloh 1t would have been
more pertinent if he had shown that the
order of march had not been the cause
of delay in the arrival OF the troops at
Point Junction"